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A look at vanadium redox flow batteries in Europe
Within flow batteries, one type that has been receiving a lot of attention in recent years is vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs).
But even though there is little doubt VRFBs will play a role in the future grid-scale energy storage landscape, the share VRFBs will capture is an open question, said Willis Thomas of CRU Group.
“The best applications of the VRFB in this space are energy shifting and peak shaving, with expected durations above four hours,” he explained to INN. “These are expected to be particular areas of growth in the energy storage landscape to 2025.”
However, Europe has historically been long on announcements and short on physical installations, Thomas continued. “Batteries on the ground in Europe, mainly pilot and demonstration efforts, are few and far between,” he said. “Available statistics from the DOE point to less than 5 MWh of VRFB operation in Europe at the end of last year.”
But will VRFBs replace lithium-ion batteries in energy storage? For Thomas, the choice of battery for individual projects is generally a T-junction, where a decision is made to use one technology or another based on the current techno-economic circumstances.
“Vanadium prices have a strong impact on the VRFB cost, more so than lithium in lithium ion. Therefore, during a vanadium price spike VRFBs can be particularly uncompetitive,” he said. “In vanadium, these price spikes are short lived, but the spikes remain a feature of this mainly by-product commodity.”
The need for longer duration is key to driving VRFB demand as this type of battery can operate more easily than lithium-ion batteries for durations of over four and eight hours.
“It will not take a lot of battery MWh of VRFBs to create a surge in demand due to the small size of the vanadium market (global demand in 2020 was less than 110,000 tonnes of vanadium) and the leverage of vanadium to MWh (about 5 tonnes of vanadium per MWh),” Thomas said.